Unlike disease and poison, madness has no specific effect in the 3e rules. For our purposes, madness is best depicted via illusions (for more details on illusions, see the “Illusions and Invisibility” section of this document, p.80). This may involve seeing illusionary monsters when there is really nothing there or seeing more monsters than there actually are in a given battle. Creatures, including fellow party members, may fade into and out of invisibility, cycle through a series of monstrous models, or suddenly burst into flames (or some other visual effect) before the madman’s eyes. He may even hear randomly triggered hotkey voice files from monsters, NPCs, and fellow players. Mad characters will also be haunted by an urgent cacophony of whispers whenever they attempt to rest. Lastly, custom-scripted events can also be linked to madness checks, allowing us to tailor madness to the actual campaign through visions of past characters and other such devices.

There's absolutely no information about the poster or source but it cerainly reads as genuine. More information.

I remember, early on in NWN development, talk of you playing and perhaps seeing a comrade swing their sword at thin air as if fighting something - and you wouldn't know if it was an illusion they'd fallen for but you hadn't, or an invisible creature they'd stumbled on etc.

Would have made illusion spells real fun and added a whole new level to the game. I suspect it got dropped as it just confused people who would rather presume a game glitch than consider such subtleties.

Joined: 16 Oct 2001
From: Edmonton, AB, Canada Posted: Friday, 06 June 2008 05:31PM
Someone in QA just brought this to my attention. I can confirm, at least, that it isn't a hoax. It's an excerpt or series of excerpts from the game's design doc, outlining my original plans for the official NWN campaign.